Back from Kyoto and Nara

Hi everyone,

I’ve just returned from a three-day trip to the ancient capitols of Kyoto and Nara. I am working on uploading various pictures and organizing blog posts on the trip, so the next set of posts will cover various places, mixed in with other articles and posts of a more general nature.

In summary, it was an awesome trip. I went to Kyoto and Nara five years ago completely “green” to Japan and to Buddhism, and it inspired me to pursue things further. It was great to come back full-circle and see some places I saw before with more experienced eyes, better photographs, and more background knowledge. Also, I experienced some things on the trip I didn’t see last time (e.g. The Silver Pavilion, the February Hall at Todaiji), which I hope to post about as well.

To give you an idea of the first trip and this one, here’s a photo I took five years ago at the Kyoto Station with a geisha statue there:

And here’s me five years later (fatter and greyer) taken yesterday:

Anyway, day one was a hectic trip on the bullet train, the shinkansen (新幹線), which our little one had never ridden before. The ekiben (駅弁) or “train bento” boxes were delicious as usual, but the weather was cloudy, so no photographs of Mount Fuji unlike last time. After we arrived and got settled at our hotel, the Shin Hankyū Hotel just outside Kyoto Station, we went to Chion-in temple and then the Silver Pavilion before it became too late in the day. Most Buddhist temples in Kyoto close by 5pm, so we went home and crashed.

Day Two we had some travelling mishaps getting to Nara. Pro tip: taking the train to Nara on the Kintetsu line is real easy, but make sure you get the limited-express or tokkyū (特急), which makes a direct stop at Nara station. If you take the local train, it’s 20 long stops, and you have to switch lines at Yamato-Saidaiji station. Same goes with regular express or kyūkō (急行).

In any case, Nara was a quieter and more laid-back place, and just wonderful. Todaiji was great, and this time I was able to see a lot more than just the giant Buddha statue. I finally got to climb to the February Hall and overlook Nara, among other things. I also got to see the famous Kofukuji temple, which is home to the Yogacara or Hossō sect of Buddhism in Japan. More on that in related posts (Todaiji alone will take two posts, Kofukuji at least one).

Day Three we were treated to a special tour of the Nishi Honganji temple in Kyoto. Sadly we had no remaining time to see anything else. But the tour showed us the many special rooms inside the Honganji, often used by famous warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and paintings not seen elsewhere. An amazing treat, and being at the home temple of our own temple in Seattle was really great too. I hope to talk about this more in depth later, though for obvious reasons, I wasn’t able to take many pictures.

So, that’s it for now. Stay tuned and I will do my best to get things out on the blog over the next week or two. I’m still in Japan and still hoping to visit friends there, as well as take the little one to Tokyo Disney one of these days. As such, the schedule is still somewhat chaotic.

Also, I’ve received many wonderful comments from people over the last week, and if I fail to reply for some reason, please accept my apologies.

–The Management